


of superlatives

by Anonymous



Category: Dorohedoro
Genre: A character study of sorts, Aromantic Noi, Asexual Shin, Established Relationship, F/M, Incompatible Identities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-06-14 12:51:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15389148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: In which Shin is ace and Noi is aro and neither of them quite knows what the hell do they want. It still works, though, strangely but unsurprisingly so.





	of superlatives

**Author's Note:**

> alternatively: i like the word drabble. don’t you like the word drabble? i have no idea where i’m going with this, they sure don’t either; here, have a drabble.
> 
> im adding a thing or two to the insignificantly small heap of what stories this couple has to offer if it is the last thing i do

The way he is, he established at some point or another, he likely lacks the capacity to love; the way most people have it, at least.

There’s no real reason for it, probably, the way he flinches away from certain kinds of touch. Having been through a lot would just be a lousy excuse, of course, if he ever tried to make one, because one of the things that he firmly believes in is that you are the way you are no matter what the world makes of you; that you are what you make of yourself despite of what the world makes you. And he's himself and there's that, simple as that.

But, maybe there is something about it, something more, that makes it ridiculously laughable, grotesque, about even the idea of it. Of, seeing death, causing death, growing strangely attracted to the way human bodies look like from the inside, the way people’s heads dent and disfigure when hit into with a dull object, of the way skin splits open and leaves the blood gushing through - all that, and then, after everything, peacefully kissing someone, embracing under the setting sun and all that goes with it - everything about the image feels off.

No, if he would, he’d rather go down amongst carnage, would rather have his first kiss in the midst of rotting corpses, hold her close inches from dying, staring down the eye of apocalypse. He imagines she would find this sentiment silly, considering all that it is, overly dramatic in a way that he likes to think is very unlike him, but the point still stands and he’s yet to stand corrected.

What’s contributing to the ludicrousness of it all, further, is the fact that everything that goes with it - making love in the bloody heaps, her name on his chapped lips, touching her body as if it’s the first time, their cleanups excluded, that he remembered how to be alive - all of it but the attitude is not something that he would ever desire to have with another person, not even her.

 

 

Sometimes, he thinks that she is just as incapable of love as he is - in a different way, naturally, following the usual patterns of their differing variations of divergence from the norm. But they’re the same level, same state of mind, despite being the polar opposites that they are. She welcomes touches, initiates hugs, slides her hand over others’ backs in what is tad too rough to be called casual; doesn’t mind human contact in all the ways that he steers away from.

Noi likes being social in this way, even with people who he would consider barely strangers, which would be everyone, barring a couple people at most; doesn’t mind if it evolves into something else, something different, more. (He hates the word  _more_.)

Open to possibilities, putting pleasure before everything else, however much her definition of it has to clash with most everyone’s. She wouldn’t care, so he doesn’t care to think too much about it either. She wants to befriend everyone, so much that it doesn’t even come to mind that someone could be special, that anyone could be - god forbid - more than that, than good friends, than what she has with him.

Especially more than him, it seems, because for whatever reason she didn’t even once think that this dreadfully boring, dry, uptight person might not be fun to be around. Quite the opposite, really.

 _You’re my favorite,_ she stated more than a few times, and his opinion of it being high ends of ridiculous, being compared to an object or a toy, battled with the strange sort of warmth that inanely settles in his chest every time she says it.

It’s been this way ever since they met, and he’s been worse back then. He wonders why, even though, knowing her, she never really did wonder at all.

It may be the fact that he looked like such an extreme, nothing that she's witnessed before, growing up with riches and devils of high calibers and sorcerers with status and fame, that made her want to get closer, to know more: pale blank empty page of a book, tabula rasa of a look. Desperate enough for anything, but lacking resolve to even move.

Or that he looked like such an impossibly, decidedly difficult person to enjoy yourself around, that she just couldn't wait to try.

 

 

"Say, don't you think the blonde girl that was fighting me earlier was super hot?"

Shin looks at her straight in the eye for an impact added, before he retorts, "I have never, in my entire life, considered another person  _hot_."

"Not even me?" Noi utters, by some magic managing to make it legible despite the piece of bread that she stuffed whole inside her mouth and is now chewing on. Ketchup is dripping onto the table, inches away from spilling over onto her lap. He has never been more endeared by a sight.

 _You have crumbs all over your face_ , he'd say, but it's useless, so he won't.

 

 

Her horse laughter could wake a man up from a coma, her hugs wouldn't be gentle even if watered down sandwiched between layers of fluffy sheets and feather pillows, and he still couldn't wish for anything more than to be trapped in her chokehold.

Often, he ruminates on the ways of saying  _I love you_  without saying it; something he has issues coming up with, since even the most brutal and gory, impactful of confessions and actions, appear to lose its meaning when it comes to the two of them.

Even ones such as _I'd die for you_ , ones like _I'd kill for you_ , are remarks far more remarkable to most, than they are in their case, the case and the context to account for, taking everything into account.

Or, to conclude, it could be considered a much grander gesture - romantic, even, depending on your standards for such - if he hadn't died for her so many times already, too many to count: it would really not mean much at all, if it happened once more for a different reason.

And for what? She'd have eliminated whatever was it bothering the both of them before bringing him back from the brink of existence: easy, like she’s done every time. Not even gently, or rather, as gently as she's capable of: bruising wrists and spraining ankles, thrusting him back into awake, arms around him, secondhand smoke seeping into his lungs, faces inches away from touching. Futile and counterproductive, and embarrassing as well, being in this state: he is the senpai after all.

 

 

“Well,  _I_ thought she's hot.”

“Of course you did.”

Noi laughs.

“Is this you subtly telling me that you'll try to have sex with her later?” He didn't know she had it in her to avoid being graphic at the diner table.

"Sure, why not?”  _Subtle_ , Shin thinks, all but emptying the salt container onto his plate with a cough, when she follows the thought with a “She seemed like the type to be into spanking.”

“Have fun,” he manages.

Noi grins at that, messily as ever, showing him chunks and pieces of food stuck still unprocessed in the process; chews, swallows.

“Are you jealous?” she asks him suddenly, then, and he has a feeling that there is something that prompted this.

"No."

He isn’t, truthfully, not at all; despite the fact that he knows that she's going to be bombarding him with all the details later, if it turns out to be good. No reason at all to be jealous of her flings.

It’s unusual for her to be worrying about something like this, though.

“Good.”

It's too abrupt for him to find it an acceptable closure of the topic, so he doesn't let her switch over to another one just yet.

“I don't know why would I be.” What reason for her to think that he would?

Noi shrugs. “Dunno. The family asked if I was jealous of that girl you talked to, or scared that she was gonna steal you away and that I’ll lose you. I didn't get it.”

She looks down at him, head tilted, leaves unspoken the  _I still don't_.

“I mean,” she tries again, shaking her head slightly, “You're right here, aren't you?"

 

 

He doesn't bother with paying attention to much other than speed and precision in moments like this; he gets far too lost, too caught up. Riding the waves of adrenaline, body moving on instinct, his face stretched into something between a grin and a grimace, he thinks about how good it feels to have her to share this with.

“Hey, Senpai,” she says, breathing heavily, easily throwing another punch as a follow-up to her next-to-most recent one, with which she knocked a boulder of a man right into unconsciousness with just one fist, audibly cracking his skull. She's grinning brightly, the blood on her face not yet dried up.

“What?”

“Love you!” she tells him, and though he doesn’t take any physical hits to cause this temporary lack of senses, the words that punch into him, straight in the chest, feel something akin to a cannon blow. It’s so easy for her, being this honest.

He finds himself at a loss of words for much longer than he’d have liked, before he scowls and crushes yet another face with his hammer; gathers himself enough to reply.

“Silly. Focus on the fight.”

He told her to drop the nickname. It makes no sense.

“Okaay, Senpai!”

He knows she won’t, though.

“I love you too” feels strange in his mouth when he says it, chews on it for minutes after. He isn't used to any of this, he thinks, not even after all these years; she’s the only one.

Family is family, and everything else is a casualty, but being like this with anyone is what’s reserved for her and her only, being this at ease with another human being. A declaration of such doesn’t cut it; he doesn’t think that anything does, not quite. But it doesn't take away from it, either, even though it’s not like she doesn’t know already.

 _You think too much_ , he tells himself, the way he does every time that she gets that look that tells him exactly the same.

 


End file.
